I am here to explain what exactly constitutes a T14 and whether you should place a strong emphasis on attending one.
Each year, U.S. News and World Report (“U.S. News”) ranks approximately 196 ABA accredited law schools according to various criteria. The T14 occupy the first fourteen slots on that list. I have listed the 2023 T14 schools here. Repetitive numbers indicate a tie. I should note that the 14th slot has shifted frequently in past decade to sometimes include Georgetown and University of Texas at Austin.
1. Yale
2. Stanford
3. Chicago
4. Columbia 4. Harvard (tie)
6. Penn/Carey
7. NYU
8. UVA
9. Berkeley
10. Michigan
11. Duke
12. Cornell
13. Northwestern
14. Georgetown
So how does U.S. News come up with its rankings? U.S. News has grouped its guiding criteria into the following categories:
· Quality Assessment (40% of overall rank for 2023), including:
- Peer Assessment (weighted .25): Law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments and the most recently tenured faculty members rate programs' overall quality on a scale of 1-5, from “marginal” to “outstanding.” A School’s ranking for this category is an average of all of the 1-5 ratings received. This Peer Assessment survey was administered in late 2021/early 2022.
- Assessment by Lawyers and Judges (weighted .15): Judges, practicing attorneys and hiring partners at law firms use the same 1-5 scale as in the Peer Assessment review above. The final score for this portion was the average of the responses received for the three most recent survey years. This survey was conducted in late 2021 and early 2022.
· Placement Success (26% of the overall ranking for 2023), including:
- Employment for 2020 graduates ten months after graduation (weighted .14) or at graduation (weighted .04): The schools' graduates that received long-term full-time jobs not funded by the law school where a JD was an advantage or bar passage required received the highest scores.
- Bar Passage Rate (weighted .03)
- Average debt incurred obtaining a J.D at graduation (weighted .03) and the percent of law school graduates incurring J.D. law school debt (weighted .02): These two statistics were new as of the 2022 report.
· Selectivity (21% of overall ranking for 2023), including:
- Median LSAT/GRE for the 2021 entering class (weighted .1125)
- Median Undergraduate GPA for the 2021 entering class (weighted .0875)
- Acceptance Rate for the 2021 entering class (weighted .01)
· Faculty, Law School and Library Resources, including (13% of overall ranking for 2023):
- The average spending on instruction, library and supporting services (weighted .09) and the average spending on all other items, including financial aid (weighted .01)
- Student to faculty ratio (weighted .02)
- Library resources and operations (weighted .01): the ratio of full-time equivalent professional librarian positions as of June 30, 2021 (or the close of a law school's fiscal year) to fall 2021 full-time equivalent law students.
How important is the T14 and should you incur more debt to attend one?
Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all response to this common question. Most of the advantages associated with attending a T14 relate to BigLaw and clerking for federal judges. I did not attend a T14 and was able to get a position at a white shoe firm in Manhattan. That being said, at Fordham Law, I needed to place within the top 30%-40% of my class to secure that summer associate position. For T14 students, GPA cutoffs tend to be less strict. Most of the people I work with at my firm and on the other side of my deals attended T14s. However, in New York, I also work with a fair share of attorneys from the other “local” NYC schools such as Brooklyn Law School. Similarly, in Boston, a good amount of BC and BU law students land jobs in big firms, so long as they are near the top of their classes as well. In sum, attending a T14 means that you will have an easier job securing BigLaw and/or a federal clerkship. However, attending a non-T14 does not close those doors for you. You will just need to rely more heavily on your school’s reputation within its geographical region and your strong academic performance. Remember, a prosperous legal career is made from hard work and consistency. Attending a T14 can provide a helpful boost but is not a winning lottery ticket.
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